Oddbean new post about login | logout What this statement implies is Israel now has a few days in which it can bomb Gaza as much as it wants, with no consequences from the international community aka EU and USA. https://media.mastodon.nu/media_attachments/files/111/192/742/989/542/378/original/b7f6bf3d432417a1.png
Something that generally worries me is the 'spirit of 1914' overtaking Western societies again. We don't get taught this often, but a major reason so many people welcomed war in 1914 was it offered a 'clean' and 'clear' struggle for societies that were wracked by internal conflict. Just like Israel is internally divided right now. Just like so many European and north American societies are. It was men who loved this national struggle who later formed fascism, to keep the feeling going.
@b870d4c8 Good point! What’s hopeful, in a way, is what happened the decades after. Colonised troops returned home after seeing their European masters being less than invincible, applying the idea of nationalism to their own nation and fighting for their freedom. We saw the rise of labour and leftist rights. Women finally were getting democratic rights! I hope there is a similar light in this fascistic, dystopian tunnel.
@b16adb22 Yes, I take your point, but that all mostly happened after 1945 rather than 1918. The period after the first world war was more an extreme continuation of the social turmoil of pre-1914.
@b870d4c8 1914 was a powder keg ignited by a botched and really ‘insignificant’ assassination of Franz Ferdinand that allowed certain groups to start a war that wasn’t really anything to do with his death, I agree that we are seeing a repeat of those times again, but compressed into a much shorter time period and with the possibility of far greater loss of life given the advance in actual weapons of mass destruction, not Blair’s imagined ones. Maybe a cull of us will suit billionaires
@ae005e86 I think the rise of billionaires reflects a weakened society that is more likely to see major wars and catastrophes, but I don't think billionaires are able to plan or actively cause this kind of event.
